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Updated: May 15, 2026
Creating Rigidly Stabilized Fractures for Assessing Intramembranous Ossification, Distraction Osteogenesis, or Healing of Critical Sized Defects
Published on: April 11, 2012
Fractures in children younger than 18 months
A Fassier1, P Gaucherand, R Kohler
1Hospices civils de Lyon et université Lyon 1, hôpital Femme-Mère-Enfant, Bron cedex, France. alice.fassier@chu-lyon.fr
Abstract:
Fractures in children younger than 18 months occur before the usual walking age. The prognosis is favourable across fracture types and circumstances of occurrence. The cause is obvious in obstetrical injuries, whose risk factors have been well documented. Diaphyseal fractures are easy to recognise, whereas challenges may arise with the diagnosis of physeal injuries. Fractures occurring after the neonate is discharged home may be due to accidental falls related to clumsiness on the part of the carers. Other possibilities, however, are child abuse and abnormal bone fragility. Thus, the aetiological diagnosis has major medical, social, and legal implications. Identifying the aetiology is often extremely difficult and benefits from the involvement of a multidisciplinary team. The literature review presented herein is designed to assist orthopaedic surgeons in the diagnosis and management of children with fractures before 18 months of age, in compliance with French legislation, which has undergone major changes over the last quarter century.
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